Awakening Wednesday — Skin Cancer, the “Big C” and Magnesium

The “Big C“! — skin cancer. Basal cell? Squamous cell? Melanoma? As a sun-baked-Baby-Boomer, just the thought of skin cancer can put fear into the heart. All those many hours/weeks/months/years paddling around in the surf or flaked out on the beaches here in California, worshipping Ra, the sun god! Long before SPF was even acknowledged, there was olive oil and baby oil to create that golden French fry tan. Being

The annual “Full Body Check” ritual!

blue-eyed and fair skinned just upped the ante for me in terms of risk. To be cool, tanned and healthy-look was the objective. But there’s something called the “Law of Unintended Consequences” — an outcome neither intended nor desired.

So, for a very long time now, I’ve visited my dermatologist annually for a full-body check. That’s what I was doing this morning. A ritual “search & destroy” mission.

Yet, this year, as with the preceding 12, the news was good. Sun damage: Yes — in the form of such things as weathered skin and fractured capillaries across the nose. But cancer? No!

That’s 13 years of ‘search’ with no need to ‘destroy’! Before that, it had been at least one destroy mission each year to eradicate some small basal cell cancerous outcropping. In those years, I considered even that to be ‘lucky’ since the problem was not a squamous cell cancer or, heaven forbid, melanoma.

All this is most ironic, given the fact that I am in the business of formulating skin care products! Of course, one of the main reasons I AM in the business of skin care is that I knew I needed help. While I can’t say for certain that my clean bill of health from my dermatologist each of these past 13 years is because of the products I make, I don’t think it is just a coincident that when I started in 2000 to use my own products on myself, the ‘search & destroy’ missions stopped.

I have written many times over the past decade about the healing benefits of natural magnesium applied topically to the skin. Our use of magnesium and potassium in our creams and masques forms the hallmark of the Awakening brand. Supplementing the benefits of these minerals is the wide array of essential oils and botanical extracts that we also use. In my case, I am addicted to my own Awakening FACE&Neck and Awakening SUN, both of which are loaded with magnesium and both of which have SPF screens.

Therefore, I do what I do because I want to help people ‘do good’ by their skin. And I also do it for the benefit of my own family and for me! You might even say that I’m out to save my own skin! I am!

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Awakening Mineral Skin Care is a boutique formulator of nature-derived, vegan skin care products utilizing concentrated mineral crystals isolated from the Dead Sea, essential oils and botanical extracts. With only a few exceptions, we call our products by what they do: Awakening HANDS treats hands, Awakening FEET treats feet, Awakening BODY treats bodies, Awakening SCALP treats scalps — you get the idea. However Awakening MUDFace is mud for the face (and feet!) — so, as with 9th grade English, there are always exceptions to every rule!

Just want to introduce myself: I’m Rob Hardwicke, the President and Product Master of Awakening Skin Care. The goal of this blog is to be a participatory voice on issues that affect us all when it comes to skin care.
All of us have skin (a profound observation!). All of us are living longer and longer (or at least some of us). Therefore, since we’ll be occupying this skin of ours for a good many years, we might as well make the most of it. This means taking care of our skin. READ MORE ABOUT ROB HARDWICKE